Wales Support Extending Residency Eligibility to Five Years

Just one day after England another Tier 1 union has come out in favor of changing player eligibility laws. Wales will support extending residency eligibility to Five Years, two more than the current requirement.

The contentious ruling from World Rugby’s Regulation 8 enables uncapped players to represent another after completing three consecutive years living in that country. This, in effect, enables a player to qualify for that country after one professional contract. In other words it can benefit those with professional leagues but harms others.

Martyn Williams earned a total of 104 caps, playing for Wales and the Lions. Following England’s call to change the laws he came out in support. Today official support came from the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). Head of Performance Gearing John said  “We believe five years is the right thing. That’s the message passed over to World Rugby when we had the meeting.”

Wales is looking to retain a competitive team and challenge for glory in Japan 2019. An important part of this is to have the best players. This means the best Welsh and Welsh qualified players with Project Players falling outside not within the definition.

“We feel it fits into our strategic plan in terms of what we’re about here in Wales – developing our own, developing players that are already here in Wales, looking at talent and trying to keep that talent in Wales,” John added.

Regulation 8.1 (C) has directly contributed to the targeting and nationalizing of talent. The extent to which this is occurring was highly evident at Rugby World Cup 2015. At that tournament Argentina was the only country with no players born abroad. Quarter Finalists Australia, France, Ireland and Scotland had between 7 and 12 foreign born players each, many of whom qualified via residency.

Scotland’s roster, named this week, for the upcoming Six Nations implied that rugby is at crisis point. Of the 37 players 19 of them were born abroad. Cornell Du Preez became the latest South African forward on the Scottish roster. He joins Alex Allan, Allan Dell, WP Nel and Josh Strauss.

England Rugby (RFU) chief executive Ian Ritchie and France Rugby (FFR) President Bernard Laporte are confirmed as pushing through the change from 3 to 5 years. Laporte even went so far as to declare that all players must carry a French passport.

The position of many on the World Rugby Council is already confirmed. The likely voting behavior of others can be determined based on past decisions and the attitude towards the player eligibility laws.

A decision will be made in May. Based on who carries voting power and the declared or likely position the potential for change is very high. As shown below the change could go through with 28 to 12 being the potential outcome.

DECLARED OR LIKELY POSITION
For Change – Argentina (2), Canada (2), England (2), France (2), New Zealand (2), South Africa (2), Wales (2),  Georgia (1), USA (1), World Rugby Chairman (1), World Rugby Vice Chairman (1), Africa (2), Europe (2), Oceania (2), North America (2), South America (2)

Against Change – Australia (2), Ireland (2), Italy (2), Scotland (2), Japan (1), Romania (1), Asia (2)